


The Art of Uncooperating

by TheFourtiethHorseman



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Babysitter Clint, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Clint needs a nap, Clint that's not how you practice archery, Corporal Punishment, Deaf Clint Barton, Gen, Non-Consensual Spanking, POV Clint Barton, Pietro Maximoff Lives, Pietro is a little shit, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, a healthy amount of Captain America hero worship, all of you, get a grip, medicine administration is a full contact sport, steve reminisces weird ass memories, the avengers don't understand, tony is too stressed, unconventional medical techniques
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-30 21:13:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15104999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFourtiethHorseman/pseuds/TheFourtiethHorseman
Summary: “You’re saying I should spank Pietro,” he stated more than asked, almost choking around the words.Steve looked over and did that annoying thing where he made eye contact while being earnest.  Steve was really good at being earnest.  “I’m saying that you should do whatever you think will work."





	The Art of Uncooperating

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hopefully_not_a_shitty_ballerina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopefully_not_a_shitty_ballerina/gifts).



When Tony demanded, “What the  _ hell _ did we just walk in to?” Clint could only imagine he was referencing the thirty-seventh floor’s state of disarray.  Pillows everywhere  _ but _ the couches they belonged on.  Couch cushions crooked and toppled.  An end table and partnered lamp knocked on their sides but unbroken, not that Tony couldn’t afford a new one if they did break it.  Magazines, books, and other such paperwork that  _ had _ been on the coffee table strewn all across the floor.  TV remote cracked open and spilling its batteries, and TV itself humming mariachi music from a Latin Satellite Radio station Clint had accidentally turned on during all the ruckus.

 

Tony may have been referencing that.  Or he may have been referencing Clint himself, who had Pietro pinned to the floor, knee on the side of the kid’s head and one wrist firmly in Clint’s grasp, keeping his arm wrenched up in an arm bar that Pietro was smart enough not to fight against.  They were both out of breath, and Clint had a bead of sweat rolling down his temple. His pants were falling off from a grab that Pietro hadn’t quite executed correctly, unless his goal had been to half-pants Clint. 

 

“Um…” Clint said intelligently, trying to find words to explain his past fifteen minutes in hell, as well as excuse his current actions, which probably looked far from innocent.

 

“Did you listen to nothing I said?” Banner said, shouldering past Tony in the doorway.  He was on them in a matter of seconds, tugging Clint back with a hand on his shoulder and helping Pietro to his feet.  Clint let himself fall back, sitting on the floor, gobsmacked. It figured that the minute the others showed up, the brat would start behaving.  It fucking figured. 

 

“No unnecessary strain, and that  _ includes _ rough housing, thank you.  What the  _ hell _ were you thinking?” 

 

“Um….” 

 

“Has he had his shot today?” Bruce asked, fussing over Pietro like a mother hen while the boy, who hadn’t sat still  _ all day _ stood there patiently and allowed it.  Mother of fuck. 

 

“No,” Clint said, and Bruce squawked. 

 

“Every twelve hours!” 

 

“I know!” 

 

“For Christ’s sake, come on Pietro.”  Bruce turned on heel and dragged Pietro out of the room behind him.  Down the hall, the elevator beeped, and Clint could hear Friday asking Bruce if he required anything.  

 

Clint didn’t bother getting off the floor, too lazy to dig up the energy, but he didn’t appreciate how this angle gave Tony the opportunity to stare down his nose at him. 

 

“So how’s babysitting going?” Tony asked, after a while, and Clint threw himself onto his back and covered his exhausted eyes with his forearm.  His skin stuck, sweat not quite evaporated. Clint scrubbed at it. 

 

“Great,” he answered.  “Fine,” because the last thing he was about to do was admit defeat to Tony of all people. 

 

“Uh huh.  Keep it up, Robin Hood.” 

 

And with that, Tony was gone, and Clint had the chance to close his eyes and catch a break, if only for ten minutes. 

  
  


———

 

So Clint wasn’t having a good time, but nobody really was in the aftermath of Sokovia.  He wasn’t having a good time, and he’d been having a bad month before that. Hell. A bad year.  A bad few years, actually, even the bright spot that was ‘joining the Avengers’ was dimmed a bit by the Loki incident (that nobody talked about) and Tony’s nervous breakdown (which they really ought to talk about) and all the shit that had come before then, which Clint talked about in his S.H.I.E.L.D. mandated therapy sessions only when it became evident that they wouldn’t let him out into the field until he aired out some of his trauma.  And he had a lot of trauma. More than most people acquired in only a quarter of a century, except for like… Steve, and apparently the twins.

 

And now he was confined to the tower, spending every waking minute watching after someone who hated his guts and getting bitched at by everyone else who liked to pretend they understood the situation.  It was a small miracle that they were mostly busy these days, doing damage control and publicity shit and clean up efforts.

 

Clint was ‘grounded,’ as Tony liked to say, until further notice.  He needed time to nurse a few unfortunate bullet wounds back to health, which he thought was ridiculous.  Everyone had been hurt and they were still out there. Everyone, that is, except himself and Pietro. 

 

Pietro had been hurt worse than any of them, and Clint solemnly believed that the absolute climax of his shit decade/year/month had been watching the kid go down.  They’d thought he was dead. They really didn’t think he would make it through, and Clint was used to death. He had to be. But something about this one punched him right in the gut. 

 

These kids- and that’s what they were, only eighteen years old, absolute  _ babies _ \- did not deserve to be in this war.  They’d been given a shitty hand at life, and maybe this was some of that pent up trauma Clint was reluctant to talk about, but he remembered being eighteen and deadly and so, so scared. 

 

Pietro was scared, whether he wanted to admit it or not, and Clint got that.  He’d been pretty uneasy when he’d first relocated to the Avenger’s tower as well.  What, with the talking ceiling and eyes in the walls and furniture that was more expensive than any apartment that Clint had ever owned.  Living around people, having them in his space despite having entire floors between them. Having luxuries he’d never imagined possible, and Clint had lived in America before all of this.  

 

Pietro was not only in a new living situation, but in a new country all together.  His sister was off, spirited away until S.H.I.E.L.D. got everything figured out. Apparently student visas were hardly extended to human weapons, and there was only so much undermining they could get away with.  She was off testing and training while they got an understanding of the full scope of her powers. The twins, as far as Clint knew, were not used to being separated. 

 

That, and Pietro hadn’t wanted to side with them in the first place.  Not until the end, and even then he’d had trepidations regarding it. His family, dead.  His sister, away. His country, destroyed. His life, totally upside down, like the saddest remix of the Prince of Bell Air theme song Clint had ever heard.

 

Besides all of that, he was sick.  Forced to take a medication that dampened his powers and broke the psychic connection he and his sister had formed, all for his own safety.  Pietro had taken a lot of damage in Sokovia, and if he kept pushing his heart with the super speeds he was used to functioning at, it might just push his body to the limit.

 

It must have been a kick in the balls to be powerless like that, after everything.  

 

Not that Clint would know, since he tended to feel powerless surrounded by the Avengers anyways.  It was a good thing Tony and Natasha were just plain mortal too, because as much as Steve and Thor and Bruce were great guys, trying to keep up with them was kind of exhausting. 

 

So bad situation or otherwise, Clint only had so much patience and Pietro was pushing his buttons.  He hardly talked, and when he did it was snappish and sometimes just plain mean. Not that Clint couldn’t handle mean, it was just that Pietro was his primary source of social contact.  Natasha was too busy half the time to text him back, and the others only ever stopped into the tower for fifteen minutes before sprinting right back out the door with orders to ‘feel better’ and ‘rest up’ and ‘watch the kid!’ as if those were things that had ever come easy to him. 

 

But he had to try, because for the first time in a long time he wasn’t just holding it together for himself.  He had someone else to look after, and God knows he had training for everything in the world except this. 

 

He’d never had this problem with Bobbi, who could handle Clint and herself and everyone around them like she’d rehearsed how her day was going to go and everyone was sticking to script.  And Bishop was such a firecracker that even if she needed his help, she wouldn’t let him know until the situation had already been dealt with.

 

He’d spent some time on an assignment to “look after” Natasha, but that had more or less been Clint following her around and watching her take care of herself. 

 

Long story short, he wasn’t a caretaker.  He wasn’t enjoying this fucked up life he was living for the next several weeks.  He wasn’t sure how he let Steve sign him up for this.

  
  


——

 

“Listen, Cap.  You got nothing to worry about.  I’m stuck on the ground anyways. Let me do this,” Clint said, delirious.  He hadn’t slept in four days. But how could he, with the boy in a coma in the hospital, filled with bullets intended for Clint.

 

“Tony said he’ll be okay,” Steve said, and the lost look on his face reminded Clint that for all Steve Rogers was the ideal american and a war hero and almost a century old, he only had two decades of life experience.  Clint hated remembering these things, and he hated being this tired. It made his stomach feel like acid. 

 

Steve’s face was like acid too when he scoffed lightly and shook his head.  “What does Tony know about medicine anyways?”

 

Clint rubbed a hand over his face, trying to find feeling in his eyelids.  “More than you,” he said. “Arc reactor, remember?” 

 

He’d heard the stories- the abridged stories- just like everyone else.  Just like it was easy to forget Steve really was just a kid from Brooklyn, it was hard to remember that their obnoxious playboy teammate was a certified genius.

 

“That’s really more engineering….”

 

“Bruce agrees with him,” Clint added, not pointing out that they had the country’s best doctors piecing the boy back together, doctors who specialized in meta-humans  _ and _ kept their business discrete.  If they delivered as promised, not only would Pietro recover, but he would do so without the media and everyone else banging down the Avenger’s tower doors for harboring a war criminal. 

 

War criminal…. Jesus Christ. 

 

“Are you feeling alright?” Steve asked, and suddenly there was a hand against Clint’s forehead.  Clint flinched away, and Steve withdrew his hand, face sympathetic but offering no apology.

 

“I’m fine,” Clint answered.

 

“You should go rest.”

 

“I’m not leaving him alone.”  If Clint was conscious enough to pay attention to himself, he would have noticed the way his voice cracked, spilling out emotions that he didn’t know he had and certainly didn’t want to talk about with Captain Fucking America. 

 

Steve could be pretty subtle when he wanted to, though.  He nodded vaguely, and then there was a hand on Clint’s upper arm guiding him to his feet and leading him across the room to the unoccupied bed that the hospital wasn’t busy enough to cart away. 

 

“I’ll stay,” Steve said, pushing gently until Clint was sitting on the bed, and then somehow laying down.  He was wearing clothes that weren’t his- just the first things that had been handed to him after the medics had finished sewing him back up- and his combat boots.  They probably still had mud and dust and blood on them. He’d been forced to shower, but he had a layer of grime on his skin that came from pacing stuffy hotel rooms for days at a time and not wearing deodorant.  He felt like he was soiling the white hospital bedding just by touching it, but Steve’s hand was heavy where it settled against his head. Clint’s eyes fell closed. 

 

“I’ll keep watch,” Steve said, and then Clint was out.

  
  


——

  
  


“Look, it’s easy,” Bruce said, holding the syringe up for Clint to see while holding a disgruntled Pietro by the arm.  “Press through the seal, and pull up on the plunger. Press down a bit to get the air out, and then just stick in any meaty area.  Arm is easiest, but it might start to bruise.” 

 

Clint nodded along, listening diligently to Bruce’s instructions.  Bruce spoke to the kid next.

 

“You’ll feel a pinch, but you’re a tough guy, right?”  He winked casually, but Pietro just glowered at him. Bruce had mentioned once how he’d considered becoming a pediatrician back in the day.  He probably would have been great at it. 

 

“And wha-la,” he announced, tossing everything into a tiny red bin at their feet and stripping off his rubber gloves.  “Easy peasy. You can probably do it yourself, if you get comfortable.” 

 

Pietro’s only response was mouthful of muttered Sokovian, and while the language was close enough to Russian that Clint could usually make it out, these words got lost in the dialect.  He was willing to bet they weren’t anything nice, though.

 

“What a fucking ray of sunshine,” he muttered after Pietro stormed out of the med bay, hopefully making his way to their own floor of the Avengers tower.

 

“Oh yeah, because the Avengers are always such pleasant patients to deal with,” Bruce snipped back, and Clint couldn’t help but snicker.  

 

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Bruce added, “And if it’s not, you’re Hawkeye.  You can handle anything.” 

  
  


——

  
  


“What do you think you’re doing?” 

 

Clint had been sitting at the kitchen island staring into a bowl of cereal and wondering if he was going insane for the past five minutes.  Eventually, though, his abilities of perception became heightened enough for him to deduce that the weird sound bothering him was from the outside world, not his own head.  Shortly after that realization, he’d decided to go track down the noise. 

 

Up one floor in the elevator, down a hallway, two left turns, and a short moment of debating whether or not he needed a weapon ready, Clint peeked through a doorway, clutching a sturdy looking ash tray, ready to throw. 

 

He didn’t have to throw it, though, because the weird rhythmic thumping was Pietro, feet pounding away on a treadmill. 

 

Clint didn’t know the thirty-eighth floor had a small personal gym, resembling the kind you found at hotels.  Wynn Resort level, though. No stooping to Holiday Inn status, not when Tony was in charge. 

 

Pietro didn’t even startle when Clint spoke, absolutely guiltless.  He caught his eye in the mirror and raised his eyebrows, still running.  Clint crossed his arms, leaned against the door frame, and tried to school his expression into something stern. 

 

“What?” Pietro asked.  “This is human speed. Am I not allowed to run?”

 

“Not allowed,” Clint reaffirmed, if only because Pietro’s face was flushed a bright red and his breathing was coming out in wheezes.  He pushed off the doorway and crossed the room, smacking his hand on the ‘pause’ button as soon as he was close enough.

 

Pietro huffed and slowed down with the machine, until the conveyer belt was slow enough to gently roll him off the end.  He landed easily and crossed his arms, scowling at Clint in a way that was meant to look intimidating, but only managed to look pitiful with the kid’s level of exhaustion. 

 

“I wasn’t using my powers,” Pietro complained.

 

Clint was too short of patience to stoop to arguing with teenagers.  He reached out and caught Pietro’s wrist in his hand, keeping his eyes on the clock while ticking off heart beats. 

 

“Your pulse is ridiculous,” he scolded.  “What part of ‘no strenuous activity’ don’t you understand?” 

 

“You were doing acrobatics earlier!” 

 

Clint didn’t know whether he wanted to correct Pietro and teach him the word ‘hand stands’ or ask the kid not to tell on him.  He hadn’t thought he was being watched. 

 

“I didn’t pop my stitches,” he replied, “I”m fine.” 

 

“So am I,” Pietro gritted out.  

 

“That’s not up to you.” Clint fished his phone out of the pocket as an alarm started to chime.  “Well lookie that, medicine time,” he said, and he should have really seen it coming when Pietro shoved him out of the way and sprinted out the door. 

 

“Hey!” he yelped, hissing in a breath when a step backwards twisted him just a bit too far and made his recently injured side scream at him.  Tough shit, Barton, soldier through. He pushed off the wall to give himself some momentum and ran out the door after him. “Pietro!” 

 

“Fuck away, old man!” Pietro shouted back, rounding a corner on unsteady legs and darting out of sight.  He didn’t have a perfect grasp of the english language quite yet, but Clint heard him loud and clear. He caught the gist of the sentiment.

 

Well, Clint had outrun mobsters with a broken ankle.  He had rebounded from a brainwashing spell from the God of Mischief.  He’d flayed the skin off his entire thumb to escape a pair of handcuffs and then beat down two dozen thugs to get himself out of a warehouse.  He wasn’t going to be bested by a snot nosed brat who didn’t want to take his medicine. 

 

Clint reminded himself of that mantra style as he took a flight of stairs in one reckless jump and felt his knees ache on impact.  The stairwell door slammed shut below him and he swore, thundering down the rest of the stairs and yanking at the handle.

 

Locked. 

 

Mother of-

 

“Oh!” Clint pressed his ear to the door when he heard a muffled voice exclaim in surprise somewhere on the other side.  “Good afternoo- whoa there!” 

 

There were sounds of scuffling, and Clint considered turning his hearing aids up before realizing that whoever was out there could unlock the door for him. 

 

“Hey!” he shouted, pounding his fists against the durable metal.  God damn Tony and his nonexistent budget and well-built tower that couldn’t be torn apart when Clint really needed it to be.  

 

“ _ Mister Barton, Steve Rogers has arrived,” _ Friday announced from a nearby speaker, and then the door was swinging open and Clint was stumbling into the hallway.  Sure enough, there was Steve, standing there with his hand on the doorknob and a struggling Pietro thrown over his shoulder. 

 

“Is everything alright here?” he asked, so God damn genuine and concerned.  Clint couldn’t exactly lie to the guy when he was sweaty and out of breath and clutching his side and  _ locked in the stairwell _ . 

 

“Been better,” he murmured.  He noticed a pink spot fading high on Steve’s cheekbone and raised an eyebrow.  “You good?” he asked, gesturing to it. 

 

Steve let go of the doorknob and touched at it with his fingertips.  “Caught a misplaced punch,” he answered casually, as if he was not holding his most likely assailant over his shoulder.  It had either come from Pietro or Tony, and well, it wasn’t Tony that Steve was hauling around like a sack of potatoes. “Care to explain?” 

 

There wasn’t much to explain, just that Pietro was a little less than willing to sit still and take his  _ life saving injection _ , and that while they’d gotten through Day One with only an argument, Day Two had come with a demented obstacle course.  At the end of the day, he was more than happy to have Captain America around to lend a hand. He got a bit of vindictive glee from the way Pietro’s eyes widened when Steve set him back on his feet and said that Pietro would  _ behave _ and he would  _ like it _ , so help me God- shaking his finger and everything, like the world’s most intimidating housewife. 

 

Pietro got a shot in the arm, and Clint got a smack to the back of the head, and Steve was retiring to his own floor before half an hour was up, leaving Clint and Pietro alone in the living room. 

 

“Want to watch a movie?” Clint offered, extending the olive branch. 

 

“Whatever,” Pietro muttered, then stormed away in the direction of his bedroom and slammed the door behind him.  

 

Clint sighed, slouched on the couch, and peeled his t-shirt up to poke at his bullet wounds.  No new blood on the bandage, so the stitches must have held. Good. He didn’t want to have to beg Natasha to fix them, or face the disappointment on Bruce’s face when he admitted that he tore them out. 

  
  


——

  
  


A few nights later, Clint dreamed about an earthquake.  It had been an ordinary dream up until that point, though once the shaking started he couldn’t remember any prior events.  All he knew was that he had to find something stable to take cover under- something that would collapse and crush him. He looked around and realized the ground wasn’t just moving, it was rising- all at once and hovering, dislocated from the land it had been attached to. 

 

‘Aw man,’ dream Clint said.  ‘Not again,’ and then he was stumbling, pitching over the edge of the severed land and falling into the darkness. 

 

He woke with a start, back glued to the bed and head still spinning.  His bed was shaking, he realized, and his ceiling flashing like a subdued strobe light.  Tony’s oh-so-clever Clint-proof alarm clock. Clint groaned, tugging his pillow over his head, and said, “I’m up.” 

 

When the bed didn’t stop, Clint lifted the pillow and enunciated, “I am up, Friday, knock it off,” and hoped it didn’t sound foreign and gummy the way he feared his voice always did when he couldn’t hear it.  

 

The bed stilled, and Clint rolled out of it, replacing his hearing aids and sitting down heavily on the edge of the bed.  The clock read 2:37 a.m., and Clint groaned loudly and rubbed his eyes. “What do you want?” he asked the ceiling. Friday was quick to answer. 

 

“Master Barton, there seems to be some distress coming from Pietro Maximoff’s bedroom.  Mr. Stark programmed me to alert you of these types of events.” 

 

Of course he did.  Tony thought of everything.  “Is the kid hurt?” Clint asked, stretching his shoulders and popping his knuckles as he stood. 

 

“Pietro has suffered no physical harm,” was the answer, and Clint nodded vaguely as he made his way to the doorway. 

 

“Thanks, Friday.” 

 

“No problem, sir.” 

 

He was going to have to talk to that robot about manners, because the uber politeness really kind of freaked Clint out.  That wasn’t a talk to be had at two in the morning, however. Clint decided it could wait as he ambled off down the hallway.  

 

Clint and Pietro’s bedrooms were on the same side of the tower a few doorways apart.  He wasn’t in any great rush to get there, figuring that Friday would have sounded a bit more fretful if there had actually been anything to fret about.  Then again, Friday had woken him up in the middle of the night. 

 

He reached the room and curiously cracked open the door upon hearing muffled noises from inside.  If Clint accidentally walked in on the kid jerking off, he was placing himself in one of Stark’s creepy ass sensory deprivation tanks and shutting down for a  _ while _ . 

 

Luckily, it wasn’t anything like that.  Clint squinted to see in the dark and found the kid muttering in his sleep, tossing and turning. 

 

Classic.  Nightmare. 

 

One time Clint had woken Natasha and startled her, and she’d decked him so hard he’d lost a tooth.  Luckily, the hand Pietro flailed out was uncoordinated and easy to catch. Clint batted it away and quickly took his hands off of Pietro as the kid jerked awake with a gasp. 

 

“Hey there, star shine,” Clint murmured, expecting Pietro to shove him away and tell him to get out.  He wasn’t expecting him to curl into a ball and bury his head in his knees.

 

“You okay?” he asked, and then slapped his palm over his face.  No, of course not. Stupid question. “You’re okay,” he corrected, reaching out and placing a hand between Pietro’s shoulder blades and praying it was the right thing.  When Pietro didn’t violently jerk away from him, Clint rubbed his hand over his back. After a minute, he shifted closer, put both hands into the effort, and pressed his thumbs into some of the tougher knots in the muscle there. 

 

He rubbed the heels of his hands into the space between his shoulder blades, and Pietro actually sagged forward like a rag doll, and exhausted sigh escaping his lips.

 

“What… are you doing..?” he asked, voice just above a murmur.  He turned his head to peek up at Clint, who offered a grin. 

 

“Helping you relax.  Any good?” 

 

The answer was a satisfied hum, and then Pietro was squirming out of his grasp.  He rolled his shoulders and popped his neck. Clint took that as his sign to go, so he let his hand fall on the top of Pietro’s head in a way that sleepy-him thought might be some semblance of platonic affection, and then shuffled his way back to the door.  Just as he was getting there, the touch pad on the wall caught his attention and he turned back around. 

 

“You can ask Friday to check the building security,” he said, making Pietro glance up at him curiously. “I do that a lot when I get freaked out at night.”  

 

He didn’t do it a  _ lot _ , actually, and he used it more to spy on people during the daytime than reassure himself at night, but he figured a white lie wouldn’t hurt just then.  “You can also have noises playing while you sleep. White noise, or like… music from back home, or whatever you can find on the internet.” 

 

Pietro tilted his head to the side and regarded Clint with squinted eyes, like he wasn’t quite sure what Clint was telling him or why.  “Thanks,” he said eventually, still sounding unsure of himself, and Clint decided it was officially time to head back to bed. 

 

“Night,” he said, and shut the door behind him.  Just two steps away from the door, and he heard the quiet beeping of fingers tapping over a key pad.  

 

Bingo.

  
  


——

  
  


“What are you doing?” Clint hadn’t gotten back to sleep the night before, so this particular Wednesday found him as a zombie.  He lazily jabbed away at the buttons on his Xbox controller and watched as Crash Bandicoot slipped off a platform and into a swampy abyss.  Aw, man. 

He dropped the controller onto his lap and tipped his head back to find a cautious Pietro leaning over the couch and squinting at the screen. 

 

“Video game,” Clint answered, voice coming out croaky from lack of use.  “Sleep well?” 

 

Pietro grunted and rolled over the back of the couch, landing in a sprawl next to Clint.  Clint kept his eyes stuck firmly ahead, picking his controller back up and playing it as casual as he could manage, like dealing with a frightened animal.  This was the first peaceful encounter he’d had with Pietro, and he wasn’t eager for it to go to shit. If he moved too suddenly, that might happen.

 

Had to play it careful. 

 

Clint continued to play in silence, but after getting hung up on the same obstacle three times, Pietro snorted a quiet laugh next to him and he glanced over.

 

“What?” Clint asked.  

 

Pietro shot back, “Best shot in the world can’t land on a single platform,” and Clint narrowed his eyes before holding the controller out to him. 

 

“Your turn then, hot shot.” 

 

Pietro took to it like a natural, and after flying through two levels he started turning to Clint and firing off little comments.  “Thought you said this game was hard, old man.” “Did you see that? Got to watch the birds, Clint.” “Oh man, you would have choked there, huh?” 

 

Clint found himself biting his tongue and sending Pietro playful glares in return.  If it was Natasha, he would have tried to shove her over on the couch to kill her concentration, a habit he’d picked up from Steve.  Steve wasn’t very good at video games, but he was damned good at using his super strength to the detriment of whoever he was playing against, which was why Tony adamantly refused to play with any of them anymore.  More often than not, video games in the Avengers tower turned into wrestling matches, which was why the common room floors now had foam mats under the carpet, and why Pepper had once chewed Tony out for twenty-five minutes about a vase that had gotten mistakenly thrown in a full team brawl. 

 

Pietro wasn’t there, though, despite how homesick those memories were making Clint feel.  He didn’t want to push anything when he wasn’t even sure if they were making progress. 

His phone vibrating in his pocket reminded him of the time, and Clint crept over the back of the couch while Pietro was still preoccupied with the video game.  It took mere minutes to fetch Pietro’s medicine from the kitchen fridge, and when he got back to the living room Pietro was right where he’d left him. 

 

Crash went crashing straight into the waiting mouth of a hippopotamus as Pietro glanced up at Clint, eyes narrowed and focused right on the syringe in his hand.  

 

Clint was too tired to be running all over the tower this morning, and he told Pietro so.  “Come on, man, I know it sucks. Let’s just get it over with.” 

Pietro didn’t answer right away.  In fact, he held eye contact for so long that Clint was sure he’d be spending another day chasing after him.  But then, ever so slowly, he nodded. 

 

“Fine.” He held his arm out, looking away with a sour expression but rolling his t-shirt sleeve up nonetheless.  

Clint almost couldn’t believe it was that easy. “Really?”

 

“Just do it!” Pietro snapped, and Clint didn’t waste any more time.  It was his lucky day, he supposed. 

 

Or, at least, that’s what he thought, until Pietro tossed the controller onto the coffee table.  An empty coffee mug toppled off the edge and landed with a dull thud. Pietro flinched. 

 

“It’s a boring game anyways…” Pietro muttered, and then disappeared down the hall.  Clint watched him dumbly, listening for the all-too-familiar  _ slam _ of his bedroom door before heaving a defeated sigh and tossing the syringe into the sharps bin on the kitchen counter. 

 

Hole in one.  At least there was that. 

 

——

 

Two steps forward, one step back.  Clint spent the evening sneaking through the Avengers’ tower in a twisted game of hide and seek.  “I swear to God, Pietro, if you’re not out here in five minutes-!” Clint shouted at the ceiling, not exactly sure what he was threatening but knowing that if this went on much longer, he’d be out for blood.

 

He peered suspiciously around a corner and cleared his throat.  “Come on out,” he cooed. “I’m not gonna hurt you….” 

 

Eventually he caught Pietro making a mad dash for the elevator and was able to tackle- er… apprehend him- and hold him still long enough to stab the needle into his upper thigh. 

 

“You know,” he gasped, out of breath when the wriggly bastard nailed him in the stomach with a knee.  “There has got to be an easier way to do this.” 

 

The next morning he was ready.  After an evening of tossing and turning he’d resigned himself to staying up all night.  By two a.m. he’d relocated to the living room with a cup of coffee and a Golden Girls’ marathon.  By six a.m., he had his bow armed and ready, a sleepy-time arrow notched and loaded. 

 

The second Pietro set foot outside his bedroom, Clint let the arrow fly, and Pietro hit the ground. 

 

“Aha!” Clint cheered, making his way leisurely down the hallway and stabbing the injection right into the meat of Pietro’s ass, just to be spiteful.  He then hauled Pietro’s practically unconscious body to the living room couch and settled him in to sleep off the sedative. 

 

Clint himself collapsed in the nearby arm chair, and he slept like the dead until a few hours later, when Pietro kicked the back of his seat and spit out a, “Fuck you.”  Clint was just happy he got the phrase out properly this time. 

  
  


——

 

“What… are you doing?” Steve asked, voice full of hesitation like he wasn’t sure he wanted to be asking.  Clint beckoned him closer, and Steve tip toed over to him, dropping into a crouch next to Clint and eying his bow speculatively. 

 

“I have his medicine loaded into here,” Clint explained, nodding his head towards the arrow he had notched.  “That way I don’t even have to catch the kid to give it to him. Just gotta wait till he rounds the corner.” 

 

“And this is easier than just approaching him?” Steve asked, and Clint nodded. 

 

“Ridiculously.” 

 

“What if he doesn’t round the corner?” 

 

Well, Clint hadn’t really thought of that.  He frowned.

 

“Friday,” Steve called out, glancing towards the ceiling.  “Where is Pietro right now?” 

 

“It would seem that Mr. Maximoff is making his way towards the roof of the tower.” 

 

“Mother of  _ fuck _ ,” Clint swore, dropping his bow and shoving himself to his feet.  

 

“Language,” Steve said, looking a bit too smug for his own good.  He got up as well and ambled into the kitchen, leaving Clint to track down the brat by himself.  Clint stormed towards the elevator and clutched his bow tighter, almost like he was facing an actual mission.  Steve laughed and wished him good luck, and if it was anyone  _ but _ Captain America, Clint would have flipped him off. 

 

——

 

A little over a week into the healing process and they called an unofficial truce.  Pietro plopped down on a bar stool at the kitchen counter and held a hand out just as Clint was getting his medication out of the fridge.  “Let me do it,” he commanded, and Clint only hesitated for a moment or two, worried that if he handed it over Pietro would immediately chuck it. 

 

He didn’t, though.  He rolled the bottle between his palms and filled the syringe up to the twenty-five the way Bruce had taught them.  He cleared the air, bit down on his bottom lip, and stuck the thing into his arm. 

 

Clint swallowed the horse pill of an antibiotic he’d been ordered to take and didn’t envy him at all.

 

“You okay?” Clint asked him, taking the box back and stowing it in the fridge.  He tossed the needle away and wiped his hands on his pant legs instead of washing them. 

 

Pietro shrugged.  He leaned across the counter and picked up the cup of coffee Clint hadn’t gotten the chance to drink from yet.  Clint frowned at him. 

 

“Been through worse,” Pietro said, and yeah, Clint could jive with that.

 

He nodded, once, and got himself a new cup of coffee.  

  
  


——

 

With Pietro now agreeing to take his medicine, things calmed down a bit.  Clint spent his mornings shooting arrows into the ceiling instead of into Pietro, and they even spent enough time together for Pietro to learn some new video games.  He didn’t like racing ones, because they moved too slow, and Pietro divulged that one of the reasons he hated the medication was because of how it fogged up his brain. 

 

“Slows things down,” he said.  “But it’s not relaxing. Just slow.” 

 

They watched TV when the drops were the worst and tossed things back and forth across the living room when they weren’t.  So long as Pietro didn’t over exert himself, Clint figured it was fine. He insisted that the gym was off-limits, though. The last thing he needed was for someone to come in and catch the kid running. 

 

If he had to listen to another safety lecture from Tony Stark of all people, he’d shoot himself.  But overall, things were good. It was smooth sailing. 

 

Which was why, when Clint opened the fridge, found the supply empty, and lamented that he had to make his way down to the medical bay for more, he didn’t look twice when Pietro offered to get it himself. 

 

“I’m a big boy,” he said, mockingly stealing the phrase Clint had teased him with a day or two before.  “I can be trusted to give myself an injection.” 

 

The night before, Cap had tracked Clint down and sat with him for a while.  

 

“Everything’s alright?” he had asked, and Clint had nodded.  Steve grinned. “See? I knew it would all work out.” 

 

“Of course, Cap,” Clint had answered.  “You’ve got nothing to worry about. I can handle anything.” 

 

So that morning, a half hour after Pietro had gone to get the medicine, when Friday alerted him in a voice that was far too frantic for an AI that Pietro had  _ left,  _ well.  Clint’s first thought was that he’d officially lied to Captain America.  He gave himself a second to grumble over that before realizing that, with Pietro’s speed, a second was far too long to waste.  He immediately tripped into his tennis shoes and sprinted out the door.

 

——

  
  


It was stupid of Clint to think he could keep this whole situation under raps.  It was also stupid of him to think he could track the kid down, on foot, while traveling normal human speeds.  Pietro could be anywhere, and Clint had just picked a direction and started running. Three blocks into his journey and his watch started ringing, so Clint slammed his thumb onto it and sagged against a wall to catch his breath. 

 

He needed to start training again. 

 

“So Friday says both you and boy wonder are out of the tower,” Tony’s voice said, straight into his ear, and sometimes Clint regretted living his life as a Stark Cyborg.  

 

Then again, hearing was nice. 

 

“I’ve got it handled,” he snapped back, looking for all the world like he was talking to ghosts.  “Don’t sweat it.” 

 

“So you know where he is then?” 

 

“I-“

 

“Two miles east,” Tony interrupted, giving the cross roads.  “And… he just crashed. Looks like he’s unconscious.” 

 

“Fuck.  Thanks, Tony, I-“ 

 

“A car will meet you there, since you don’t want my help,” Tony quipped.  “Better start running.” 

 

Clint groaned loudly as Tony hung up.  He shoved himself off the wall and set off. 

 

When he got there, he was worried he’d have a hard time finding him.  Then he found a woman in mom jeans crouching over Pietro’s body on the sidewalk, and he was instantly both furious and relieved. 

 

“Young man…  _ young man _ …  do you need an ambulance?” 

 

“Oh thank God,” Clint said out loud, jogging over and crouching next to them.  He tried to control his breathing, so that he didn’t huff and puff while like an amnesiac.  A heavy stream of people flowed around them, barely giving the collapsed boy on the sidewalk a second look.  Just a typical day in New York, then. 

 

Clint was just glad they weren’t more recognizable. 

 

“You know this man?” Mom Jeans asked, and Clint nodded, pressing his fingers into the pulse point under Pietro’s jaw.  Fast.  _ Way _ too fast, even for him.  He kept his face neutral to suppress his panic. 

 

“A friend of mine,” Clint answered. 

 

“Just came out of nowhere, and next thing I know he’s falling.  Is he on drugs?” 

 

“He should be,” Clint mumbled under his breath, and then shot her an innocent grin, when she looked at him with worry in her eyes.  “He’s fine, just sick,” Clint said.

“Do you need me to call an ambulance?” she asked, and in a fit of impeccable timing, a black SUV came to a tire squealing stop on the street next to them.  

 

“Thank you for all of your help,” he said instead of answering, and stood up.  Before he could even touch the door handle, the car opened the door itself and Clint was greeted with an empty front seat and a familiar robotic voice.  

 

“Need a ride?”

 

Clint scoffed.  “Self driving car, Nat? Really?” 

 

“You think I have time to play chaperone?  Rendezvous at the tower. The med team is already here.  Tony wants to talk.”

 

Clint didn’t like the sound of that, but after all the other bullshit he’d gone through today, this might as well happen.  It wasn’t even noon. What the hell.

 

“Roger that,” he answered, and went to peel Pietro up off the sidewalk.  It didn’t look like he smacked his head too hard on the way down, so Clint didn’t bother being terribly gentle.  “Have a good day,” he said to Mom Jeans, and after hauling Pietro through the open van door, he slammed it closed.  The car took off peeling down the road. 

 

“That woman’s gonna think she just witnessed an abduction,” he said, and Natasha’s robot voice gave a laugh. 

 

“Pepper will send her flowers.  Sincere apologies from Stark Industries for her emotional turmoil.” 

 

Clint nudged Pietro into a more comfortable position, flat on his back on the floor of the van, and held his palm in front of his nose to make sure he was still breathing.  He was, just far too quickly. Just like everything else. “Better keep it anonymous. Don’t want to invite a lawsuit.” 

 

“Clever boy. Hang tight, you’ll be back in five.”

  
  


——

  
  


Sure enough, Clint had hell to pay when he got back to the tower.  A medical team met them at the door, hauling Pietro out of the car and strapping him to a stretcher, then wheeling him into the building Fast and Furious style, Bruce and Dr. Cho following hot on their tail.  

 

Clint got out of the car a bit more slowly, not eager to face the disappointed looks Tony and Steve were shooting him.  Sam and Natasha were there as well, talking quietly a few steps away, and Rhodey could be seen pacing inside the tower, rubbing his head and talking with somebody on the phone.  Probably dealing with Fury or Pepper or whoever else wanted Tony to tell them what in the sam hell was going on.

 

Wanda had been there as well, which was a shock all of its own, but she’d been neck in neck with the medical team as they took Pietro away.  

 

The car shut itself and pulled away, headed for the garage, so Clint had no choice but to join the rest of the team.  He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck as he wandered over, callouses scraping slightly sun burnt skin. 

 

“Hey…” he said, offering a grin and being greeted with scowls.  “So… crazy morning, huh?” 

 

“What the hell happened?” Tony snapped, and alright then.  Straight to the point. 

 

Clint shrugged.  “He said he was going to get his medicine out of the med bay,” he said.  “He lied. I believed him. He snuck out and fainted.” 

 

Tony looked over Clint’s head and huffed out a breath.  He had that look on his face, the one he got when he was really losing his shit.  For some reason, his angry face also made him look like he was about to burst into tears.  Not that Clint had ever seen Tony cry, but it always seemed possible, like they were tiptoeing some invisible line. 

 

He snapped his eyes back down and pressed his lips into a firm line. 

 

“You said you could handle this,” he said.  

 

“I can-“

 

“Then what the fuck happened this morning?” 

 

Clint let his arms fall to his sides helplessly, and he shot a look to Steve, reaching out for a hand here.  Steve, if anything, crossed his arms tighter and raised an eyebrow, and it figured that the only time he and Tony agreed on anything was when they were busting Clint’s balls.  He scoffed and moved to push past them, head into the tower, and find someplace to hide out for the rest of the day, since apparently it was going to be crowded. 

 

Tony caught his arm before he got the chance, though, and he yanked him back roughly.  Clint tugged his arm back to himself and sent Tony a glare, but that didn’t stop Tony from stepping uncomfortably close to him and getting in his face. 

 

“You signed up for this,” he bit out, anger barely contained in a whisper.  “If he gets hurt, that’s on you. Do you realize that he could have died today?  I can’t have another god damn kid’s blood on my hands. So get it under control.” 

 

He stepped back with so much force that he might as well of shoved Clint as he did it.  Regardless, Clint stood stock still while Tony turned on heel and stormed into the building.  He watched him go silently, watched the way Rhodey stuck to his side the moment he walked through the door. 

 

And just like that, there was another hand on Clint’s arm.  He looked up to find Steve peering down at him, but since the hold didn’t seem threatening, Clint let it slide. 

 

“Let’s talk,” Steve said, and Clint really had no choice but to follow him around the building so they could enter through a side door and give Tony adequate space to cool off.

 

They didn’t talk for the few minutes it took them to get inside and upstairs.  Steve walked quickly, and Clint had to jog every so often to keep up with him, but he didn’t seem particularly tense or angry, so Clint wasn’t too worried about it.  Steve wanted to talk. Steve wanted to talk in private. But Steve was the most polite person Clint had ever met, and he was always talking to somebody in private about something. 

 

Clint wasn’t worried, even if he should be. 

 

When they reached the door to Steve’s suite, and Steve led the way inside without a single hesitation, Clint started to have some doubts.  He followed him in and shut the door behind him, then leaned back against it and stuffed his hands in his pocket, unsure of what to do with his hands. 

 

“Can I get you anything?” he offered, rustling around in the fridge.  Clint requested a glass of water, suddenly remembering how parched he was from his impromptu run.  Steve returned a moment later, glass of water in hand. He set it down on the coffee table and took a seat at one end of the couch, and Clint had the sudden sinking feeling that he was in trouble.

 

“Relax,” Steve said, reading his thoughts again, apparently.  “Have a seat. I’m going to tell you something that I don’t want leaving this conversation.”

 

Clint was suddenly very interested.  Pushing aside his concern, he dropped onto the couch next to Steve and reached out for his water.  He downed it in three gulps and then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He looked at Steve and gave a grin.

 

“Shoot.” 

 

Bang, pow.  “When I was a kid I was sick a lot.  I was tiny, short, weighed about a hundred pounds with sand in my pockets.  And I was always in trouble. I got in fights and jumped into situations I couldn’t handle. I had no regard for my own safety.

 

“So one day, we’re about twenty, Bucky finds me at the police station.  I got picked up and hadn’t called him, spent the whole night beat up and freezing and managed to give myself pneumonia.”

 

Steve chuckled nervously and rubbed his hand over the back of his neck.  His ears flushed red. Clint held back a snort. 

 

“Bucky, he uh... dragged me home, put me over his knee, and beat some sense into my ass.  He said that I was old enough to know the consequences, but since I apparently didn’t care about them, he’d give me consequences I would care about.”

 

Now Clint was the one who was blushing, although the pink that was staining Steve’s face was nothing to scoff at either.  And Clint may have skipped almost every day of school since the third grade, but he was smart enough to figure out why Steve had just told him that story.

 

“You’re saying I should spank Pietro,” he stated more than asked, almost choking around the words.

 

Steve looked over and did that annoying thing where he made eye contact while being earnest.  Steve was really good at being earnest. “I’m saying that you should do whatever you think will work to get him to take this seriously.  Maybe he doesn’t realize how serious this is. Maybe he doesn’t care. Either way, you’re the only person he trusts. Be a friend and set him straight.”

 

Clint wanted to argue that Pietro didn’t trust him, if past experience was anything to go by, and that if anyone could convince Pietro to chill out through a heart-to-heart, it was his sister.

 

He couldn’t quite find the balls to say that to Captain America, though.  Instead, he refocused on the topic at hand, which it turned out was just as hard to talk about.  “I don’t... my parents never... listen, Cap, the only time I’ve done something like that is during sex.”

 

That got the anticipated response, which was an actual cough of embarrassment, as if that statement had startled Steve into forgetting how to breathe.  Clint reached out and patted him on the back, felt awkward two pats in, and uncomfortably pulled his hand back to himself.

 

It took a moment, but Steve got a grip.  He said, “Then find a different method. It was just an analogy.  An analogy that nobody else finds out about. I swear, if it leaves this room-“

 

And just like that he went from blundering and blushing to scary as shit.  Clint gulped. He didn’t want to know the implication behind that threat, especially not following this strange new conversation.  “Roger that. Not a soul.”

 

“Thank you.”

  
  


——

 

It wasn’t like Clint was going to follow Cap’s advice on this one.  As he’d said, the only time he’d ever messed around with (god, why was this word so easy to choke on…?)  _ spanking  _ was during sex, and two out of the three times he’d been on the receiving end.

 

Which was… not something Steve needed to know.  Nope. Not a conversation that needed to happen.  

 

Anyways.  It’s not like Clint was going to do it, but when he’d visited Pietro later in the medical bay, when he was stable and functioning again, and he’d thrown Clint a crooked smirk and said, “What?  Were you worried about me or something?” Clint found himself very, very tempted to put the kid back in his place. 

 

Instead, he hadn’t said a word as he turned on heel and walked back out of the room.  At least Pietro was okay. That was all that mattered. Clint had to get away from him before he killed him. 

 

Besides, Pietro had the medical team swarming around him still.  And Wanda had been there, curled up tight on the bed next to him and wearing an expression that suggested the first person to tell her to leave would get flung across the room.  That was plenty to keep the kid busy for a while, long enough for Clint to hit the gym and grab some coffee and get his temper under control.

 

What a roller coaster of emotions this day was turning out to be.  Maybe coffee was a bad idea, since it was nearing evening and he really shouldn’t be tempting his insomnia towards worse severity. 

 

At least, he thought that until he bumped into Tony coming out of the elevator. 

 

Tony looked him up and down with a speculative eyebrow.  “Where have you been hiding, bird brain?” he asked. Clint gritted his teeth together and raised an eyebrow right back, matching expressions. 

 

“Been hanging out with the stick you shoved up your ass.  Surprised you didn’t notice.” 

 

Tony’s stone cold expression cracked into a chuckle, and he shook his head.  “That’s gay,” he said, like a damn eighth grader. “Anyways, I’m out for the night.  Fury wants to skin me alive in person for this whole fiasco, as if the phone calls today weren’t enough.” 

 

Clint couldn’t help the twinge of guilt he felt at that one.  It wasn’t his fault that the kid had bolted- he was holding onto that fact for dear life- but he shouldn’t have been dumb enough to trust him in the first place. 

 

He really should apologize.  He’d given Tony nothing but grief all day. 

 

“Good luck with that,” he said instead, and then wanted to smack himself.  He had the social skills of someone who was raised by carnies (which, okay, he had been, but that was no excuse). 

 

“Uh huh,” Tony agreed awkwardly, and then his cellphone rang.  Clint winced, headache throbbing in his temples, and Tony glanced at the screen before rolling his eyes. 

 

“Keep an eye on him,” he instructed, and then he was on the phone and out the door.  Clint rubbed both hands over his eyes. 

 

“Friday, where’s Pietro right now?” he called out once he was alone. 

 

“Pietro is still on the medical floor of the tower.  Ms. Maximoff is there with him, and there are several security personnel stationed outside his door.  Do you want me to pass along a message for you?” 

 

Clint had nothing nice to say to him right now.  He rubbed his eyes and headed for the door. “Nah, just let me know if anything changes.” 

 

“Of course,” the AI answered. 

 

Now that he knew everything was taken care of, he could feel the weight of exhaustion pulling down on him.  It had been a long, stupid day, and he hadn’t slept at all during the long, stupid night prior. He needed fourteen hours of sleep and a pic line of caffeine, but he was willing to settle for just one of those things. 

 

“Good night, Friday,” Clint said, popping out his hearing aids and rubbing at his skull as he made his way to his room.  He’d opt for sleep instead of coffee, deciding to make a good decision instead of a bad one, cravings be damned. The floor buzzed gently under his feet, two simple tones that probably meant ‘good night.’  Man, Tony’s tech was weird. 

 

Helpful but weird. 

 

Clint fell asleep without brushing his teeth and had a dream about talking ceiling tiles.  It was the best dream he’d had in a while.

 

——

 

Shortly after Pietro was released from the medical bay, the tower returned to business as usual.  Or unusual, perhaps. They had to get Wanda back out of New York before word got out that she was there in the first place, and apparently the S.H.I.E.L.D. mandated training and testing and counseling schedule wasn’t something that could be easily negotiated.

 

Tony went back off to doing whatever it was Tony was doing these days, which according to every news station on TV, was lots and lots of interviews.  Natasha had been commissioned by someone to do  _ something _ .   It was one of those ‘if I tell you, I have to kill you’ deals she was so fond of, and Clint had learned a long time ago to stop being curious where Natasha was concerned. 

 

Steve was also pretty busy, bouncing around everywhere.  He, much like Tony, popped up in the tower at random. Just like before the incident, he would show up some time in the evening or late afternoon, and likely be gone again before morning.  Unlike before, he didn’t spend as much time meddling in Clint and Pietro’s affairs. In fact, besides occasional meaningful glance thrown in passing, Clint didn’t see a lot of Captain America. 

 

He very purposefully ignored every glance that was thrown his way, though.  He didn’t need Steve’s weird ass advice. He had things entirely under control.

 

Or at least, that’s what he was telling himself and Pietro, who was none too pleased with him. 

 

“Get off my  _ ass _ !” Pietro shouted, slamming his door shut so hard the walls shook.  Clint stepped over the mess of a now shattered vial of medicine and stormed after him with clenched fists. 

 

“Friday, unlock Pietro’s bedroom door,” he ordered, and Friday sounded a bit hesitant as she responded, but the door clicked open a second later. 

 

Clint shouldered his way in, plowing into the room like he was tackling a line backer, and mere seconds later he was storming back out, doing his best not to trip over either of them as he frog-walked Pietro down the hallway, through the living room, and back into the kitchen. 

 

“Are you  _ kidding me _ ?” Pietro demanded, as Clint kicked a chair away from the table and slammed Pietro into it.  He made quick work of securing his wrists to legs of the chair, trapping his arms against his sides with the rope Natasha kept stashed in the cabinet above the fridge.  Maybe he was going a bit overboard, but if they’d wanted conventional conflict management, they shouldn’t have hired a trained assassin. “Are you playing a joke? Get off of me, you crazy old man!” 

 

One of the first things you learn when it comes to fighting is to watch your distance, and Clint knows in this moment that giving Pietro even an inch of space would be a dire mistake.  Luckily, they were close enough to the kitchen counter for Clint to plop down heavily on Pietro’s lap, earning a grunt from the younger man. When Pietro tried to bite at his shoulder, and then head-butt him, Clint simply set his palm on the middle of Pietro’s forehead and pushed him back, leaning over him to grab the already prepped needle while he was at it. 

 

“Son of a  _ bitch _ ,” he swore, when his hand slipped and Pietro dug his teeth into the meat of his thumb.  “You little brat.  _ Fuck _ .” 

 

He wasn’t gentle about jamming the needle into Pietro’s arm and pressing the plunger, ignoring the way Pietro swore and struggled and hissed at him. 

 

Clint pulled the needle free, climbed off of him, and tossed it into the sharps container.  He regarded the seething young man in front of him. 

 

“I’ll let you up when you calm down,” he said, kicking Pietro’s chair with his toe as he made his way into the living room.  “Maybe this’ll teach you not to be a little shit.” 

 

“Fuck you,” Pietro swore back, but Clint had already made up his mind.  He wandered away, ignoring Pietro as he started to yell and swear with a renewed vigor.  He rolled over the back of the couch and hit the cushions with a bounce, grabbing a pillow as he went and tugging it over his head.

——

 

Things went on like that.  He was smothering, there was no argument about that.  But Tony was serious about Clint keeping Pietro safe and out of trouble, and Clint was in for a penny, in for a pound.  If the kid would have just cooperated in the first place, they wouldn’t be here. And yet here Clint was, stationed on Pietro’s bedroom floor, reading a magazine he’d found laying around and keeping a diligent ear on the muffled sound of running water coming from behind the shut bathroom door. 

 

Pietro could probably be trusted to shower alone, but Clint had trusted him to get his own medicine too, and look where that got him. 

 

It was only a short while later that the water shut off, and a short while after that Pietro emerged with a cloud of steam, toweling off wet hair that was dripping all over his clean t-shirt. 

 

“Still here, pervert?” he goaded.  Clint ignored him. 

 

“Ready to go back to the living room?  I want to order dinner.” 

 

“Go by yourself,” Pietro ordered, and now Clint couldn’t even if he wanted to.  Not when it meant acquiescence. 

 

In the end, he ordered pizza online with his phone and talked some first floor intern into carrying the food all the way up to the thirty-seventh floor for them.  Said intern knocked on the door fifty-five minutes after Clint had ordered his pizza, and Clint shot Pietro the sternest glare he could muster before heading to the front door. 

 

Pietro snuck into the kitchen while Clint was retrieving his food, and Clint joined him at the island.  Pietro didn’t talk to him, but he did eat five pieces of pizza before disappearing into his room for the night.  Friday dutifully locked his bedroom door behind him and promised she’d alert Clint immediately if the kid even breathed on the door handle. 

 

Perhaps Clint was being unfair.  He knew that it’d drive him absolutely insane to be smothered this badly, but well… Clint was a grown up, and he’d been acting like one since a far younger age than was reasonable.  Despite everything he’d been through, at least Pietro had always had his sister. He couldn’t begin to imagine what growing up alone had been like. 

 

Pietro was still a kid.  Still looked like one, still acted like one, and if the runaway attempt was anything to go by, he still thought like one. 

 

So Clint would treat him like one, but- well, Christ, now Clint was thinking about Captain America’s ever so helpful advice.  

 

He had to admit it was tempting with the way Pietro was acting, but Clint had to sympathize with him at least a little.  Clint knew he was being a pain in the ass, so he was willing to put up with the resulting attitude. He wasn’t about to give up his plight though.  Clint’s current babysitting technique was that of a geriatric golden retriever, hauling himself to his feet and following Pietro whenever he left the room, where he’d promptly slump down on whatever furniture or floor space was available, making sure to keep Pietro in sight just in case. 

 

He wasn’t sure this tactic would do him any good, but four days into it and Pietro finally broke.  After spending ninety-six hours sulking and glaring and whining, Pietro broke the ice with a decisive huff as he walked across the room and flopped onto the couch directly next to Clint.  

 

Clint looked up from his video game long enough for a mushroom to kill Mario and send him spiralling towards the bottom of the screen.  He stared after, while the ‘Game Over’ music played in the background, until Pietro scoffed and crossed his arms and kicked one shoe against Clint’s. 

 

“Put it on multiplayer and stop staring at me already,” he bitched, because there really was no other word for it. 

 

Likewise, in this situation there wasn’t anything else to do but follow orders.  Clint switched the game over and handed him a controller. 

 

Pietro won four times in a row, knocking Clint off his platform or jumping onto the flag a whole two seconds before Clint did, but just like that they were cool again.  Clint was dumb enough to think it might last, after he woke up the next morning and Pietro was still acting friendly and decent. 

 

He was dumb enough, as well, to try and talk to Pietro after three days of peace.  “You know we were all really worried about you….” 

 

“You worry too much, old man.” 

 

“I’m serious.  You could have gotten really hurt.” 

 

“I lived.” 

 

“Do it again and you might not.  And if you do live, I’m kicking your ass.” 

 

“Whatever you say.” 

 

So Clint was dumb enough to think this peace might last, and he was dumb enough to try and resolve the incident with the young man.  He wasn’t dumb enough to let up on his security, though. He wasn’t letting anything slide. 

 

At least, that’s what he told himself.  What happened next was  _ not _ his fault. 

 

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep in the living room, but that part might have been at least a little bit his fault.  But Pietro had wanted to watch the Matrix, and Clint couldn’t make it twenty minutes through that movie without conking out, especially when they started it at eleven p.m. and turned out all the lights, ‘old man’ comments notwithstanding. 

 

Clint woke up to the credits rolling and Pietro murmuring that he was turning in for the night, see ya in the morning.  Clint grumbled without lexicon and burrowed deeper into his couch cushion, plucking his hearing aids out as he did so and dropping them onto the coffee table.  They made his ears ache whenever he tried to sleep in them. 

 

So that part, yeah okay.  Definitely Clint’s fault. He should have remained vigilant, and being trusting enough to think that he didn’t have to wasn’t a good excuse.

 

It was peaceful, though, in total silence.  His ears relaxing where they’d been rubbing tender, his muscles melting into the softer-than-ever couch beneath him, headache melting out of his eyes.  It was peaceful enough for him to drop back into sleep, but it felt like only a minute before he woke up again: the floor vibrating, the ceiling flashing, and all hell breaking loose.

 

\----

  
  


When Clint realized his hearing aids were missing, his first thought was that he’d misplaced them.  He carefully kept his feet close and glanced around cautiously, hoping not to crush them on accident.  Again. 

 

But they should have been there, he realized shortly.  He’d taken them out as he’d fallen asleep. His second thought, once he realized that, was that somebody stole them.  That’s when he jumped into action. 

 

He didn’t favor guns, but they kept them handy in the Stark tower.  He made quick work of retrieving the closest hidden arm and held it at the ready as he crept around the tower, wishing that Friday would shut  _ up _ and stop vibrating underneath him so he could feel if somebody was moving.  Not that he would, with the building’s architecture, but the delusion of having the option would have been comforting.

 

Every room he encountered was empty.  His bedroom, the bathrooms, the kitchen.  He checked Pietro’s room and found it empty as well, and the strobing of the ceiling changed.  Taking the hint, Clint snuck back into the living room on cat feet, formulating a mental list as he went. 

 

Things that are missing:

 

  1. Hearing aids.
  2. Pietro.



 

Oh shit.  Clint may have been dumb, but he wasn’t an idiot.  He put the dots together before Friday got herself reorganized enough to tip him off.  It still startled the hell out of him when the TV flashed on, enough so that he whirled on it with his gun at the ready.  Three words stood out on the blank black screen:

 

_ Pietro is gone.  _

 

Shit. 

 

He hated talking with his hearing aids out, but it wasn’t like he could type back to Friday through the TV.  He called out, ‘Is there an invader in the tower?’ carefully forming his tongue around the syllables and hoping muscle memory made it come out sounding normal. 

 

The TV flickered and changed:

 

_ No.  _

 

‘Do you know where he went?’ Clint asked, lowering the gun and returning it to the wall cubby it resided in.  A third flicker, and a new message: 

 

_ Text Natasha.  _

 

Well, perfect.  Clint didn’t have a lot of options, but he did have a cellphone, abandoned and wedged between the arm of the couch and the cushion covered in Clint’s drool.  He fished it out and fired off a text, simple and to the point. 

 

_ The brat went missing.  Run the scans. _

 

Any of them could do it, technically, but Natasha was the least likely to give him hell for it.  Plus, in order to get to the tech he’d need in the tower, he’d have to get through floors of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and Stark employees who never slept, and Clint was too much of a mess just then to go around trying to interact with people.  Natasha could do it remotely, had been given that intel. It was astonishing how much Tony trusted her when it seemed like he didn’t trust anybody. 

 

_ What did you do? _ was the first text that came in, followed directly by an address: a pair of cross roads. 

 

_ Moving fast _ , read the third text to come in.   _ He’s at the end of his dosage.  Call me?  _

 

Clint fired off a quick explanation as to why that wouldn’t work at the moment, earning him a series of ‘lol’s from Natasha. 

 

_ Need help? _  she asked, and Clint shot back a,  _ Let me handle this. _

 

When Natasha promised to wait two hours before calling Tony, Clint figured that was the best he was going to get.  He shoved his phone in his pocket, pulled a hoodie over his head, and ran for the elevator.

 

He had two hours to find the kid and hopefully talk some sense into him, maybe smack some sense into him if he had to.  Clint didn’t want to think about that. He was furious and seeing red, yeah, but that was a problem for future Clint. It was best not to have anything premeditated.

 

But it sure was ballsy for Pietro to steal his hearing aids.  Clint would be giving him hell for that one, as soon as he made sure the kid was okay.

 

Clint had a sudden vision of Pietro’s unconscious body sprawled out on the sidewalk, some middle aged woman crouching over him and Tony’s freaked out voice in his ear.  Now it was dark and dangerous, worse people than an overly concerned soccer mom likely to stumble over Pietro’s body, and Clint had even worse chances for finding him. He was going in deaf and blind, chasing after an ever changing pair of coordinates, and he didn’t have the whole of the Avengers at his back.

 

But Natasha was team enough in every other situation.  He checked his phone, locking onto the most recent address she sent him, and sprinted into the garage as soon as the elevator doors opened.  At least he didn’t need his ears to drive.

  
  


———————

  
  


It wasn’t until Clint got his hands on him that he realized perhaps the motorcycle hadn’t been the best choice.  He’d wanted to do this dramatically, really make a statement. If he could paint the whole confrontation by design, he’d have rappelled down a wall like Batman, landed at the kids feet with his bow cocked, and demanded what exactly he thought he was doing. 

 

Instead, Clint found the kid doubled over in an alleyway, chest heaving with quick, not-quite-right breaths and frame trembling enough that Clint didn’t have the heart to immediately throttle him.  Pietro’s hands were too busy clutching at his chest for him to fight against Clint grabbing him, shoving his hand into his hoodie pocket, and retrieving his stolen hearing aids. 

 

When Clint heard the first frantic rasp, his hands immediately began buzzing with renewed anxiety.  His anger washed out of him, and he ended up abandoning the bike at the mouth of the alley, key still in the ignition, as he sprinted the short distance between them. 

 

Pietro immediately recoiled, but he didn’t get more than two steps without stumbling.  Clint caught him easily. The boy was tall but he wasn’t heavy, and Clint had enough muscle mass to keep them both on their feet without breaking a sweat.  He propped Pietro up against the wall, half-supporting and half-trapping him there, as he dug out the emergency medication Bruce had given him, just in case something like this happened.  Clint didn’t remember what it was, exactly, recalling something about steroids and faster dose for a jumpstart or whatever. 

 

He hadn’t gone to medical school.  He hadn’t even finished high school.  Remembering this shit was above his pay grade. 

 

Clint did remember how to give the injection though, pinning Pietro with a forearm against his throat when he started to struggle and jamming the epipen-like contraption into his thigh.  Pietro bit out a strangled swear and actually reached up to clutch on to Clint’s arm, looking for support.

 

“Easy,” Clint murmured, apparently being possessed by the spirit of a tender hearted nursing home attendant.  Which was good, because if he’d allowed his own consciousness to be in control, he would have ended up throwing the kid over his shoulder and hauling him back to the tower like a sack of potatoes.   Pietro whimpered. “You’re alright, I got you.” 

 

“Let me go,” Pietro protested weakly, putting no real effort into pulling away.  

 

The motorcycle wasn’t an option with Pietro being both a flight risk and potentially incapable of sitting up properly on his own.  Clint realized this after a few long minutes of staring at the bike and wondering about the best way to tie Pietro to himself to keep them both stable. 

 

In the end, he abandoned that plan and hailed a cab.  He’d have to hope the bike was there in the morning. And if it wasn’t, well… he had bigger things to worry about.  That was a problem for future Clint. 

 

Pietro passed out almost as soon as Clint got him seated, sagging against his shoulder and suddenly weighing a thousand pounds.  Clint would have been relieved that the unholy terror was subdued if he wasn’t scared as hell. 

 

But he had the thing that Banner gave him, something that would keep him safe, apparently.  He hadn’t passed out while running, hadn’t pushed himself as hard as he had that first time.  And he was further along in his recovery, if at least a little. 

 

Besides, he might not have even been moving at super speeds.  Natasha said he was going fast, but she hadn’t said how fast. She’d also said the medication was wearing off, but unless he’d been without it for the full half-life, he shouldn’t have been able to go full throttle. 

 

Clint did his best to choke down his worry as he fed the cabbie some line about taking his little brother out for his twenty-first, about how he had a few too many, you know how kids are.  He wasn’t sure why he thought he owed the cabbie a story at all, but he paid the man and helped Pietro stumble the block and a half back to the Avengers Tower with an arm around Clint’s shoulders, glad for the hundredth time that he was one of the unrecognizable Avengers.  Imagine the scandal. 

 

Nobody noticed them come in, the building not empty but at least peaceful at this hour of night.  Clint got Pietro upstairs with little hassle, formulating a plan as he went. Sit him down, get some water in him, and check him over.  Ask him what in the actual fuck he’d been thinking. Deal with this like a God damned adult. 

 

Clint hated being an adult. 

 

Put he had a plan.  Plans were good. He could totally handle this. 

 

\-------

 

He could not handle this.  He realized that when Pietro pushed just a bit too far, put one too many toes over the line, and then Clint snapped back and Pietro shoved him, and one thing lead to another and now Pietro was pinned to the living room floor and Clint’s chest was aching where he’d taken a knee and he might have had blood in his teeth. 

 

He was really fucking bad at this babysitting thing. 

 

He’d meant to approach this calmly, have a normal adult conversation with Pietro.  And he’d started just fine, but Pietro just scoffed and rolled his eyes and told Clint to stay out of his business, get off his ass.  Clint just wanted to know why he’d ran. 

 

“You could have gotten hurt!” Clint had shouted, officially losing his cool.

 

Pietro had snarled back, whatever weakness he’d experienced earlier officially leaving him as anger flooded in.  “It doesn’t matter!” he screamed. “Leave me alone!” 

 

It was like it was scripted, and his talk with Steve came flooding back to him full force.   _ “He gave me consequences to care about.” _  As much as Clint didn’t want to… ah fuck it, who was he kidding?  He didn’t have a lot of options. 

 

Clint had been warned again and again against charging into things with his temper flying- by employers and handler and teammates. Then again, Clint had never been good at listening. 

 

He reached out for Pietro, who with his medication coursing through him, wasn’t quite fast enough to slip away when Clint grabbed ahold of his arm.  He did struggle though, pulling away from him and trying to shove Clint off of him. It was all too easy to hook a foot around Pietro’s ankle, shove back on his own shoulder, and take them both to the ground. 

 

After landing with a ‘thump’ Pietro immediately began trying to throw Clint off of him, but he was exhausted from running, hurt from the accident, and weak from having recently taken an injection.  Clint, on the other hand, was close to being fully healed. He’d gotten some sleep, been drinking coffee pretty regularly, and didn’t have any injuries after being out of the field for as long as he had.

 

Pietro didn’t stand a damn chance. 

 

That didn’t stop him from getting a few good blows in, one to Clint’s jaw, not hard enough to scare, and one to his ribs.  If Clint wasn’t used to taking hits, they might have winded him. As it was, he wheezed a little before getting Pietro’s wrists locked tight and pinning them to the center of his back, setting his other knee solidly across the backs of Pietro’s thighs, and pinning him face first to the carpet. 

 

“Enough!” He snapped, dropping his open hand heavily on the seat of Pietro’s pants without even thinking about it. 

 

Pietro gasped and went still, and the silence that followed was deafening- like missing hearing aids -until Pietro erupted again.

 

“You cannot do that! Who do you think you are, old man? Get your hands off of me. You have no right-!” 

 

And that... that was pretty much when Clint made up his mind. He’d never taken well to being told what to do, and he’d taken especially badly to being told not to do something.  That was how he ended up with S.H.I.E.L.D. in the first place.

 

He got some amount of righteous satisfaction from raising his arm above his head and smacking his hand across the middle of Pietro’s ass with all of the strength he could muster.  Pietro bit off a shout half way through and kicked out against Clint like his life depended on it, but his squirming actually made it easier for Clint to manhandle them both up until he was seated on the coffee table and shoving Pietro over his knees, both wrists still locked at the small of his back. 

 

“What are you-  _ oof _ !” Pietro’s shout got cut off when Clint’s knee knocked the wind out of him, and Clint would have been worried for his health had Pietro not immediately started shouting once he got his breath back.

 

The yelling was only to his own detriment, really.  If he’d just shut up and behaved after the first few warning smacks, Clint wouldn’t have had it in him to continue.  As it was, the more Pietro said, the more Clint’s temper flared. He felt very little guilt over cutting off Pietro’s tyrade with a flurry of thunderous smacks right to the middle of his ass.  

 

He didn’t know how to stop once he got started, so he just held Pietro down firmly and put his back into it, laying down slaps that lit his own hand on fire in such rapid succession that the noise of the spanking almost drowned out Pietro’s furious yelling.  

 

It couldn’t have been much longer than a minute, though, before Pietro’s stream of curses broke off into a choked gasp.  The fighting squirming slowed down, getting replaced with a desperate tug to free his wrists. 

 

“Okay…” Pietro murmured, and Clint ignored him until his next word was just on the wrong side of panicked.  “ _ Okay!” _ he yelped, and that actually got Clint to stop. 

 

Clint was panting, chest heaving and shirt wet between his shoulder blades where he was sweating.  Pietro was strung tight like a bow string, breath loud and labored in the now silent room, heart hammering against Clint’s knee. 

 

There was a manic moment where Clint had no idea what he was supposed to do next. Was that it?  Was it over? Clint didn’t think so. He was pretty sure that spankings were supposed to last longer, just as sure that Pietro would happily make a break for it and put his life at risk again if given half the chance. 

 

And that’s why they were here in the first place, wasn’t it?  Right, of course. Clint was supposed to be teaching a lesson. 

 

Now he just had to figure out how to do that.  Man, he wished it were Steve doing this instead of him.  It had been Steve’s dumb idea in the first place. Clint could barely hold his own life together, he shouldn’t be trying to tell someone else how to live their life.  What gave him the right? What made him think he could-

 

“Well?” Pietro snapped, breaking Clint out of his thoughts. “Are you done?  Let me up, already, would you?” 

 

Okay, yeah.  Maybe Clint was a mess, but he was a mess that was still alive.  If nothing else, at least he had that. 

 

Clint steeled his resolve and tightened his hand around Pietro’s wrists, making the young man squirm again.  “You could have gotten yourself killed tonight,” he lectured, and was immediately met with an annoyed groan. 

 

“This again?  I still alive, give it a rest,” Pietro complained, and Clint was annoyed enough to smack him again.  Pietro jumped. 

 

“No thanks to you.  You think we’re doing this just to torture you?” 

 

“You’re doing  _ this _ just to torture me,” Pietro snapped, doing his darndest to shove himself off of Clint’s lap again.  Clint hauled him closer and spanked him again, three times hard right below his jean pockets. Pietro hissed out a long breath between his teeth. 

 

“I’m doing this to get through your thick skull,” Clint lectured.  “You’re lucky to still be alive with how much you pushed yourself.”  He raised his hand again and started dropping it haphazardly as he spoke, making Pietro flinch and make tiny, choked noises each time.  “You’d think you’d have learned your lesson after last week, but apparently you still think you’re invincible. Either that, or you don’t care.  So which is it?” 

 

Pietro didn’t answer, even after Clint laid a few quick smacks down to motivate him.  His hand was starting to ache, and if he ended up giving himself carpal tunnel with this shit, he was taking it up with Cap.

 

Without an answer to his question, Clint decided it was best to keep going before he lost momentum.  He rested his hand on the small of Pietro’s back and said, “You’re old enough to know better. But since apparently you don’t care whether you live or die, I’ll give you different consequences to worry about.”  It was a rough paraphrase of Steve’s speech, but he felt like it got the point across. 

 

He also felt like his he kept smacking denim he was going to lose all feeling in his fingers.  He didn’t know a whole lot about spanking, had caregivers who’d been more keen to throw fists and kicks and objects than bother with any kind of organized corporal punishment as a child, but he was pretty sure that Pietro’s pants were supposed to come down at some point. 

 

He ought to have asked Steve more questions if he’d been less mortified. 

 

Oh well. 

 

Lucky for him, the pants Pietro was wearing were loose and easy to tug down over his hips.  Unlucky for him, that action woke Pietro back up, and his struggling was sudden enough that he managed to slip his arms out of Clint’s grasp. 

 

Just as well.  Clint caught him around the waist, held tight, and spanked the now moving target in front of him.  The noise was much louder now, his hand clapping against the incredibly thin material of Pietro’s boxer briefs echoed through the empty apartment.  Pietro didn’t make a sound, by some feat of self-control, and Clint decided it was time to get back down to business. 

 

“Make another run for it, and I’ll beat your bare ass in front of everyone.  All of the Avengers. Is that what you want?” 

 

Pietro swallowed a groan and glared back at Clint over his shoulder.  “You would not  _ dare _ .”

 

“Try me kid,” Clint snapped.  “Better yet, I’ll get Captain America to do it.  This was his idea in the first place.” Oops, sorry Steve.  That one would probably come back to haunt him. 

 

“I do not believe you,” Pietro bit out, words falling through clenched teeth as Clint kept up a rhythmic  _ smack-smack-smack _ , laying down one a second and very quickly lighting his hand on fire again.  

 

“You scared the hell out of us,” Clint said.  “All of us. Do you know what could happen if you don’t heal?  Sure, you could die. But keep pushing it, keep ruining your recovery, and you might lose your power for good.” 

 

Pietro stiffened at that, and Clint could only imagine why with everything the twins had told him.  They’d risked everything,  _ given up _ everything to get where they are now.  They’d turned into monsters, and they’d been on a long path of reclaiming that.  

 

“I-” Pietro started to stay, but he trailed off, and Clint wasn’t ready to listen to him yet. He put more oomph back into his smacks, really laying into him, and a quiet whimper slipped from Pietro’s mouth before he caught it between clenched teeth.  His hands, now braced on the carpet under his face, were curling and uncurling against the floor like he was trying to hold on to something. He feet pushed against the floor in an attempt to hold still, and he stiffened in anticipation with each hit, flinching forward as it landed. 

 

“Believe if or not, I don’t want you to die,” Clint said.  “I want us to get along, but I’ll do whatever I have to to keep your stupid ass aive, you got me?” 

 

Pietro didn’t answer, and Clint acted on autopilot, hooking his hand in the waistband of Pietro’s underwear and yanking them down in one fell swoop. 

 

Christ… he was red.  The middle of Pietros’ ass was a bright red, almost glowing, and the surrounding area was a more subdued pink.  It was brighter at the tops of his thighs, where Clint had landed a number of spanks. He wasn’t bruising, but it looked like it hurt.

 

He wasn’t done yet, though.

 

“Hey!” Pietro protested, yelping when Clint smacked him again, just as hard as before. 

 

“I said, you got me?” Clint repeated, and Pietro gave up on trying to hold still.  He kicked his legs frantically, trying to throw himself off of Clint’s lap. Or at least, that’s what Clint thought until he felt Pietro’s hand wrap around his ankle, clutching on for support. 

 

“What- what do you mean, got you?” Pietro bit out.  Clint actually snorted a laugh. 

 

“Do you understand?” he clarified. 

 

Pietro shifted, kicked, squirmed until his face was pressed against Clint’s knee and his jeans were puddled around his ankles.  Clint got a new grasp on him and kept at it, not slowing his cadence to give Pietro time to think. 

 

“Yes, I understand.” 

 

“What do you understand?” Clint asked, and Pietro actually whined at that.  Clint looked down at him, saw his face was bright red. Just as bright as his butt, if not brighter.  He was  _ embarrassed _ . 

 

“It I run away again, you’ll hit me.” 

 

And just like that, Clint felt a little bit like a monster.  But he didn’t start things without finishing them. He spanked Pietro again.  “Wrong answer.” 

 

Pietro didn’t answer him after that, and after half a dozen more spanks, Clint realized the sound he heard was the sound of Pietro trying to hold back tears.  Fuck. 

 

“Your life is important.  Say it,” he said, keeping the stern tone in his voice.  Pietro cleared his voice before speaking.

 

“My life is important,” he choked out. 

 

“You shouldn’t be putting it at risk for no good reason.” 

 

“I should not risk my life,” Pietro mumbled in acquiescence. 

 

“I don’t like doing this, okay?  This isn’t fun. But if you put yourself in danger like that again before you’re healed, I won’t hesitate to do this again.  I meant what I said earlier.” 

 

Pietro didn’t respond, not that Clint was expecting him to say anything anyways.  He spanked him one final time, and Pietro responded with a wet gasp. His shoulders were shaking, head tucked against Clint’s knee and hands clutching tight to his leg in a vice grip, no longer trying to get away, just trying to hold on. 

 

God, the kid was  _ crying _ . Clint was such an asshole. 

 

He couldn’t make himself keep going after that.  All of his anger was gone, drained out of him like he’d been bleeding out this whole time and had just now realized he was empty.  His hand was killing him, his shoulder ached, and his headache was back. Pietro didn’t move a muscle. His ass was glowing, radiating heat.  Clint was such a jerk. 

 

He pulled the kid’s underwear back up awkwardly and patted him on the back, rubbing between his shoulder blades.  “Hey…” he murmured. “Come on, now, you’re alright. It wasn’t that bad. Catch your breath, you’re fine.” 

 

Pietro’s response was barely louder than a whisper, and Clint was beyond relieved to hear it. “Fuck you, old man.” 

 

Clint pulled on his shoulder easily, and Pietro released his grip and let Clint tug him upright again.  As soon as he was closer to vertical, Pietro pulled away from him quickly and stepped back a few spaces, head hanging between his shoulders and eyes downcast, face glowing with shame.

 

Clint swallowed hard, not knowing what was supposed to come next.  He wanted to go to bed and give up for the night, deal with the laundry list of mistakes that made up his evening in the morning and just shut down.  

 

But he couldn’t do that, not yet.  He had to be a grown up and handle things.  Clint hated being a grown up. 

 

“Come here,” he said, stepping closer to Pietro and holding his arms out.  He was surprised when Pietro stepped into him and dropped his head on Clint’s shoulder without a single dirty look or wry remark. Huh.  

 

“I’m sorry,” Clint said, and he meant it.  Pietro grumbled quietly against his shoulder. 

 

“I think I’m the one who is supposed to be sorry,” he said.  Clint considered that. 

 

“Yeah,” he agreed.  “You’re probably right.” 

 

“Well, whatever. I am, okay?  Just don’t do that again.” 

 

“Don’t be a moron again,” Clint shot back.  He let go when Pietro stepped back, politely glanced away when Pietro rubbed the moisture from his eyes.  He glanced at the clock on the wall. Five a.m. 

 

“You know there’s a second Matrix movie,” he mentioned, and Pietro glanced up curiously.  

 

“Yeah?” 

 

“Yeah.” 

 

“Alright then.”   And maybe later in the morning Clint regretted not getting more sleep to deal with Tony’s lecture from hell.  But after everything he’d done- everything he’d  _ had _ to do- he wasn’t going to scoff at the chance to make amends.  He liked Pietro, he really did, and if he was willing to do dumb stuff to keep Pietro from hurting himself, he was willing to try and pick up the pieces afterwards.

  
  
  


\--------------

  
  
  


One minute Clint was one his feet, taking down drone after done without missing a single shot.  He kept count under his breath, thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. 

 

The next minute, Clint was on his ass, someone’s fingers curled around the back of his neck, something pressing against his forehead, everything filled with pain.  His ears were ringing, almost static. He blinked his eyes and saw Steve kneeling in front of him. He blinked again, saw Pietro hovering over his shoulder. 

 

“Good catch, kid,” Steve said, and he grinned when he noticed Clint looking at him.  “Look who’s back,” he said. “Sit tight, you’re out of this one.” 

 

That, Clint thought immediately and violently, was bullshit.  He began to say so, protesting loudly despite the way it made his head throb and his stomach roll over his nausea.  Steve levelled him with a look that said, ‘move from this alley and you’ll be sorry.’

 

No wait, he was actually saying that, and from the look on his face Clint didn’t have to wonder what he meant by that.  He felt his face flush, mouth snapping shut despite the strong urge to argue with him. Pietro, the little shit, was cracking up. 

 

“Get the fuck out of here,” Clint said, settling back against the wall and reaching up to press whatever was keeping the blood from gushing out of his head wound. 

 

“Language,” Steve said, more of a joke now than anything.  Pietro caught Clint’s eye, laughed harder, and darted out of there in a flash.  Clint groaned and closed his eyes, sagging against the wall and deciding he hated the both of them very, very much. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Trading with Hopefully-Not-A-Shitty-Ballerina again! She wrote me some kickass Spider-man, gifted to my main account: EdgarAllenPoet.
> 
> Created this little side job for personal reasons, but as always, come talk to me at punks-n-rec.tumblr.com


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